Voyage of the Dawn Treader: Review
I've been in two minds about actually posting a review, but, I did one for the other 2, so I might as well keep up the tradition (is it a tradition if you've only done it twice before?).
And yes, I'm aware that it's taken me a whole week - I apologise, but I've had other stuff going on.
So, it was all very beautiful and magical, and I was almost completely speechless for the first half an hour or so - I even resisted the urge to say 'that's not right' when they randomly got attacked by the slave traders! In fact, I was quite willing to accept little inaccuracies on the understanding that they were more dramatic... until a boat full of people got swallowed by a random green mist, at which point I just couldn't stay quiet and had to ask what the fuck? After that I just, stopped being able to appreciate it really.
The mist was the villain of the film - not sure why it needed a villain, but, that was it anyway, and various little details had been twisted to accommodate the presence of the mist, and it made a lot of the sub-plots seem kind of, weak.
Let’s see... there was a random little girl, who really wasn't at all significant and could have quite easily been removed without it affecting the film at all - which isn't surprising, considering that she didn't even exist in the book.
The Duffers were all wrong, and only appeared for about 5 minutes - considering Corakin's island takes up 3 chapters of the book, they could possibly have spent a little bit longer there and actually followed the events a little more closely. 'Cept apparently, the idea of kidnapping is "the thread that binds the films [not all of the films, just Dawn Treader & Silver Chair] together", and so, of course, the Duffers had to kidnap Lucy!
Ramandu didn't even feature, at all... he was mentioned, but he wasn't there, there was no explanation about him being a star, or about how stars get younger, and no mention of the White Witches knife, or how the 3 lords were enchanted after they touched the knife. Ramandu's "most beautiful" daughter was there, but she was literally just there as a bit of eye candy, and she appeared to be able to switch between being a star & a person seemingly at will, which is just lazy storytelling, if you ask me.
A relatively minor thing now, but, worth mentioning, I think - Dragon Island, and Goldwater/Deathwater Island, are two completely different islands (surprisingly enough)! Why on Earth (or rather, why on Narnia) did Eustace become a dragon on the same island where they found the magic pool? Also, why did Aslan not appear to make them see how petty & greedy they were being by trying to turn everything into gold? And where was the little detail of Caspian dipping a sprig of heather into the pool to test the theory of the water turning things to gold? - Okay, that really is a minor thing, but, well, I quite like inclusions of heather! :)
Getting back to Eustace as a dragon - he didn't scorch a message into the ground for Edmund, nor did he swoop down and capture Edmund to show him said message... silly kidnapping theme ruining the story! Also, he didn't remain a dragon for that long, and he wasn't the bloody 'hero' who lifted the enchantment and defeated the evil mist of Dark Island - mostly 'cos there was no evil mist, and no random silly swords that needed laying at Aslan's table either.
So then... where was Aslan appearing as a lamb in the green meadow of a beautiful land? And why oh why was Caspian with them when they reached the world's end? That's not how it happened in the book!
Oh, speaking of Caspian, what was with his 'father issues'? That was just silliness... silliness to the point where I actually rolled my eyes!
Then again, Lucy's 'self-worth issues' were fairly ridiculous too! She was only supposed to be 10 - yes, I know that Georgie Henley is 15 now, but Lucy is supposed to be 10, and if they'd managed to release one film per year like they said they would, then she would have actually been the right age - so anyway, a supposedly (not really, but in my head she is) 10 year old Lucy practicing her flirting technique was just all kinds of wrong!
The fact that she stole a page from Coriakin's book felt wrong too... especially since she heard Aslan and did kind of know that he was there watching her - Lucy Pevensie would not defy Aslan, she just, wouldn't.
And also, the sea serpent was actually real, it did exist and attack the ship, for real, it wasn't just a random myth that was only brought to being because Edmund thought about it when they were near Dark Island. Oh, and they didn't defeat it by luring it closer so that Edmund could stab it with Peter's sword.
Gosh... there's an awful lot that I disliked, I hadn't realised quite how much I had to say - this is what comes of holding my tongue as much as possible during the film... it's weird, being surrounded by people when I'm watching a Narnia film for the first time, I'm not used to having to share that experience with quite such a large audience!
Okay, let’s see, was there anything that I liked about the movie....?
The Dawn Treader was breath-taking, Caspian's quarters were beautiful - I want to watch the film 10 times more, just so that I can study every detail of every picture painted on the walls!
Eustace was absolutely perfect & completely in character - 'cept for when he was a dragon for half of the movie! I don't know who cast Will Poulter, but they did a fantastic job... he was as perfect as Eustace Scrubb, as Thomas Sangster would have been as Caspian! Yes, I shall be eternally bitter about that, he would have been the absolute perfect Prince Caspian, and now it's just never gonna happen!
I also liked the little nods to the previous films... with the water taking human form, like the trees did in LW&W; and I loved the inclusion of Edmunds torch - even though I'm not sure how it was still working... where exactly do you get batteries from in Narnia?
Oh, one more thing - not sure if it's good ir bad (I'll go with good) Caspian appears to have randomly lost his accent. I'm happy about that, 'cos his accent was damn annoying, but, well, it's not exactly good continuity, is it? I know he's supposedly been surrounded by Narnias for the past 3 (yes, only 3 Narnian years have passed since the events of Prince Caspian), but, he'd still have little hints of his accent, surely?
Right, after a week of typing random little bits, I'm fairly certain that that's pretty much everything that I wanted to say. In conclusion, I would say that, whilst it most certainly was not the story that CS Lewis told, overall it was not a bad film, really... although they really could have done to go a little bit more in-depth with some of the side-stories, I think.
It's worth watching a few more times, I think... but LW&W is still most definitely top of the list, and I honestly don't think that they'll ever manage to match what they created in that first movie... which is a shame, really, 'cos all of the stories should be made with the same magic & wonder & beauty as that first one.
And yes, I'm aware that it's taken me a whole week - I apologise, but I've had other stuff going on.
So, it was all very beautiful and magical, and I was almost completely speechless for the first half an hour or so - I even resisted the urge to say 'that's not right' when they randomly got attacked by the slave traders! In fact, I was quite willing to accept little inaccuracies on the understanding that they were more dramatic... until a boat full of people got swallowed by a random green mist, at which point I just couldn't stay quiet and had to ask what the fuck? After that I just, stopped being able to appreciate it really.
The mist was the villain of the film - not sure why it needed a villain, but, that was it anyway, and various little details had been twisted to accommodate the presence of the mist, and it made a lot of the sub-plots seem kind of, weak.
Let’s see... there was a random little girl, who really wasn't at all significant and could have quite easily been removed without it affecting the film at all - which isn't surprising, considering that she didn't even exist in the book.
The Duffers were all wrong, and only appeared for about 5 minutes - considering Corakin's island takes up 3 chapters of the book, they could possibly have spent a little bit longer there and actually followed the events a little more closely. 'Cept apparently, the idea of kidnapping is "the thread that binds the films [not all of the films, just Dawn Treader & Silver Chair] together", and so, of course, the Duffers had to kidnap Lucy!
Ramandu didn't even feature, at all... he was mentioned, but he wasn't there, there was no explanation about him being a star, or about how stars get younger, and no mention of the White Witches knife, or how the 3 lords were enchanted after they touched the knife. Ramandu's "most beautiful" daughter was there, but she was literally just there as a bit of eye candy, and she appeared to be able to switch between being a star & a person seemingly at will, which is just lazy storytelling, if you ask me.
A relatively minor thing now, but, worth mentioning, I think - Dragon Island, and Goldwater/Deathwater Island, are two completely different islands (surprisingly enough)! Why on Earth (or rather, why on Narnia) did Eustace become a dragon on the same island where they found the magic pool? Also, why did Aslan not appear to make them see how petty & greedy they were being by trying to turn everything into gold? And where was the little detail of Caspian dipping a sprig of heather into the pool to test the theory of the water turning things to gold? - Okay, that really is a minor thing, but, well, I quite like inclusions of heather! :)
Getting back to Eustace as a dragon - he didn't scorch a message into the ground for Edmund, nor did he swoop down and capture Edmund to show him said message... silly kidnapping theme ruining the story! Also, he didn't remain a dragon for that long, and he wasn't the bloody 'hero' who lifted the enchantment and defeated the evil mist of Dark Island - mostly 'cos there was no evil mist, and no random silly swords that needed laying at Aslan's table either.
So then... where was Aslan appearing as a lamb in the green meadow of a beautiful land? And why oh why was Caspian with them when they reached the world's end? That's not how it happened in the book!
Oh, speaking of Caspian, what was with his 'father issues'? That was just silliness... silliness to the point where I actually rolled my eyes!
Then again, Lucy's 'self-worth issues' were fairly ridiculous too! She was only supposed to be 10 - yes, I know that Georgie Henley is 15 now, but Lucy is supposed to be 10, and if they'd managed to release one film per year like they said they would, then she would have actually been the right age - so anyway, a supposedly (not really, but in my head she is) 10 year old Lucy practicing her flirting technique was just all kinds of wrong!
The fact that she stole a page from Coriakin's book felt wrong too... especially since she heard Aslan and did kind of know that he was there watching her - Lucy Pevensie would not defy Aslan, she just, wouldn't.
And also, the sea serpent was actually real, it did exist and attack the ship, for real, it wasn't just a random myth that was only brought to being because Edmund thought about it when they were near Dark Island. Oh, and they didn't defeat it by luring it closer so that Edmund could stab it with Peter's sword.
Gosh... there's an awful lot that I disliked, I hadn't realised quite how much I had to say - this is what comes of holding my tongue as much as possible during the film... it's weird, being surrounded by people when I'm watching a Narnia film for the first time, I'm not used to having to share that experience with quite such a large audience!
Okay, let’s see, was there anything that I liked about the movie....?
The Dawn Treader was breath-taking, Caspian's quarters were beautiful - I want to watch the film 10 times more, just so that I can study every detail of every picture painted on the walls!
Eustace was absolutely perfect & completely in character - 'cept for when he was a dragon for half of the movie! I don't know who cast Will Poulter, but they did a fantastic job... he was as perfect as Eustace Scrubb, as Thomas Sangster would have been as Caspian! Yes, I shall be eternally bitter about that, he would have been the absolute perfect Prince Caspian, and now it's just never gonna happen!
I also liked the little nods to the previous films... with the water taking human form, like the trees did in LW&W; and I loved the inclusion of Edmunds torch - even though I'm not sure how it was still working... where exactly do you get batteries from in Narnia?
Oh, one more thing - not sure if it's good ir bad (I'll go with good) Caspian appears to have randomly lost his accent. I'm happy about that, 'cos his accent was damn annoying, but, well, it's not exactly good continuity, is it? I know he's supposedly been surrounded by Narnias for the past 3 (yes, only 3 Narnian years have passed since the events of Prince Caspian), but, he'd still have little hints of his accent, surely?
Right, after a week of typing random little bits, I'm fairly certain that that's pretty much everything that I wanted to say. In conclusion, I would say that, whilst it most certainly was not the story that CS Lewis told, overall it was not a bad film, really... although they really could have done to go a little bit more in-depth with some of the side-stories, I think.
It's worth watching a few more times, I think... but LW&W is still most definitely top of the list, and I honestly don't think that they'll ever manage to match what they created in that first movie... which is a shame, really, 'cos all of the stories should be made with the same magic & wonder & beauty as that first one.